Gaming: Amanita Design Teases The Orwell-inspired Phonopolis With A...

The next game from the studio behind Botanicula, Samorost, and Chuchel looks to be shaping up very well.

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Amanita Design is one of my long-standing favorites. It was the studio's 2009 robot adventure Machinarium that hooked me, but Botanicula, the Samorost games, the madcap Chuchel—they're all brilliantly creative works. So when I saw that a demo for its next game, Phonopolis, had dropped into the Steam Next Fest, I was all over it.

Phonopolis is a point-and-click adventure that tells the tale of Felix, a garbage collector living in a city ruled by an authoritarian 'Leader' who controls the populace with messages blared through omnipresent loudspeakers. Felix one day discovers a headset that enables him to blot out the noise and break free of the Leader's influence; he quickly comes to recognize the threat it presents, and thus sets out—somewhat reluctantly—to thwart the Leader's ambitions before the arrival of the Absolute Tone, which will strip every citizen of their minds, freedom, and humanity forever.

If that all sounds a bit on the nose, well, yeah, but Amanita makes no bones about it: The studio says Phonopolis is "loosely inspired by the works of Karel Čapek and George Orwell" and "explores themes of social manipulation and individualism," and it may not be subtle but in this era of social media meltdown and rising authoritarianism in the US and beyond, it sure feels timely.

But "the overall experience is playful and lighthearted," the Steam page states, and it really is. The most prominent puzzle in the demo involves using a broken smokestack, bad plumbing, and a building's unexpectedly malleable architecture to convince a sunbather and the landlord to have sex so you can sneak into a meeting with three of the city's foremost dissidents. That's an admittedly vague description (no spoilers here) but it is also 100% true.

The Phonopolis demo has all the hallmarks of an Amanita Design game: A strong, distinct visual style, really good music (the soundtrack comes from Amanita stalwart Tomáš Dvořák, aka Floex, who previously provided music for games including Machinarium, Samorost 3, and Creaks), and a hapless, not-happy-to-be-here hero who's just doin' his best in a bad situation.

There is also, despite the obvious comedy—and again, like most Amanita games—a subtle darkness lying underneath it all. My meeting with the dissidents was interrupted by

Source: PC Gamer